Jay Clayton to keep intelligence post as Trump AI czar

Jay Clayton will keep serving as US director of national intelligence while becoming President Donald Trump's AI czar, adding the White House artificial intelligence portfolio to one of the country's top national security jobs.

Trump has formally named Clayton to lead a White House task force on artificial intelligence, the Super Intelligence Force. The appointment puts a 60-year-old lawyer with a long Wall Street and federal resume at the center of US AI policy as public concern about the technology grows.

Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co said Clayton is “so well respected by tech leaders as well as many in the government” and called the appointment positive for the industry.

Clayton entered politics when Trump chose him to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017. He previously worked at Sullivan & Cromwell, where he represented Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, and later brought cases against crypto companies while running the SEC.

Trump picked Clayton to lead the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York at the start of his second term. The Senate confirmed him as director of national intelligence in July.

Clayton does not have the technology background of David Sacks, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who previously held the AI role. He has an engineering degree and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an economics degree from the University of Cambridge.

Aalok Mehta of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said Clayton lacks Sacks's deep technology background but has “a rich federal resume and significant experience navigating the federal bureaucracy.” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, said balancing two major jobs would be a challenge.

Connor Martin, a national security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said giving the AI portfolio to the country's top intelligence official suggested Trump was accepting arguments that AI poses cybersecurity dangers and is central to geopolitical competition with China.

Clayton takes on the role days after technology executives signed a White House commitment to police their own AI models, an accord Trump called “morally binding.” Mehta said he expected Clayton to coordinate government policy more effectively while staying aligned with Trump's goal of not slowing the industry.